Wheelchair portability and ease of use has been improved through various designs over the years. One notable improvement includes the removable and swing away foot rest assembly which has widespread use as a means of greater portability, ease of access, improved user transfer and increased mobility for both the user and related caregivers. Various examples of improvements to foot rest assemblies are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,790,553 to Okamoto and U.S. patent publications 2004/0070164 to Walsh et al., 2004/0155429 to Knopf et al., 2002/0153697 to Amirola and 2004/0155508 to Garven Jr.
Prior art foot rest assemblies typically provide a latching mechanism to secure the foot rest assembly in a use position extending forwardly from the occupant. Known latching mechanisms generally provide limited access to a release lever and are further limited in the direction which the latching mechanism or the foot rest assembly can be released. A common design involves positioning a release lever of the latch mechanism to be centered with respect to the frame members forming the foot rest assembly to lie generally in a common plane therewith so that the release lever is accessible from either side. Positioning of the release lever to be centered however provides limited access to the lever so that the lever is very difficult to operate for persons with limited mobility.
Typically latching mechanisms of the prior art employ the use of a locking pin which is selectively received within a mating hole. In order to properly align the pin with the hole and to provide ease of insertion of the pin into the hole, a sufficiently large tolerance therebetween is required so that the resulting latched foot rest assembly remains loose and is not fully fixed and rigid with respect to the wheelchair frame.
Several methodologies for pin retraction of the foot rest latching concept have been employed in the prior art. Typically a pinned-pivot lever is used to retract the sliding pin against the spring. The release works well, but has limitations in that the lever is mounted in one position only, creating left and right assemblies, or has a central mounting configuration that creates poor user accessibility. The design also demands that the lever travel in only one direction in order to retract the pin.
Prior art foot rest assemblies are further limited in that they are typically difficult to load onto the wheelchair frame, often requiring multiple steps of sliding, twisting or rotating and actuating a lever to position the foot rest assembly in a latched position on the wheelchair.